Ubuntu, the popular Linux distro that seems to be on the doorsteps of mainstream acceptance, gets better and better with each release. Their latest release 8.04 (Hardy Heron) is certainly no exception and in fact is their most polished release to date. Hardy Heron is the second ever “LTS” (long term support) release from Ubuntu which entails 3 years of support for desktop versions and 5 years of support for server versions. With that in mind, it seems the developers from Ubuntu concentrated squarely on stability for Hardy Heron.

At first glance, Ubuntu does come with some cutting edge software like Mozilla Firefox 3 beta 5, PulseAudio and Compiz preinstalled. Yet, PulseAudio and Compiz are both configured in a manor where you really can’t use its full set of features without manually installing additional software. This is a tradeoff Ubuntu developers made to get Hardy Heron as stable as possible for as large as possible userbase as they may get. With that said, Ubuntu 8.04 has evolved into a polished desktop, that leans slightly to the conservative style.

Ubuntu 8.04 comes with three basic types of installation discs: “Desktop,” “Server,” and “Alternate Install.” As usual, most users should download the “Desktop” images, which comes with a very good live mode installer. On first boot-up you’ll notice the option of booting up in live mode or going straight into the installer. I appreciated this option, because sometimes I just want to install the o.s. and be done with it. With the installer in 8.04 as long as your hardware is recognized (and chances are they will), you’ll find the Ubuntu installer to be incredibly simple. There’s just a 7 click menu process until your system is installed.

On one of my test machines, I did encounter problems with the installer recognizing either my monitor (Samsung 244T LCD) or video card (Nvidia 6800 GT). On that system I used the “Alternate Install” disc and was able to get Ubuntu installed without any further trouble.

The default Ubuntu desktop is a clear example of Ubuntu’s mixture of cutting edge and conservative philosophy. The desktop looks clean (has more of an orange tint than brown), Compiz enabled by default and offers a wallpaper that recalls a retro 1970s feel. My first impressions were not “not bad,” but it certainly isn’t a setup that will elicit oohs and aaahs. In fact its downright ordinary in a pleasant way.

Ubuntu 8.04 ships with Gnome 2.22.1 by default. There’s several new features found in Gnome 2.22.1 , that includes an improved Nautilus file manger featuring GVFS backend, international clock applet (show times for multiple locations), new Seahorse keyring manager, and Google Calendar support in Evolution. 8.04 also comes with Linux kernel 2.6.24 and Xorg 7.3..

Most applications found in Ubuntu 8.04 has a well groomed , stable feel to them (Open Office, Gimp, Rhythmbox, and Pigeon). One notable exception would be Mozilla Firefox. Rather than include the stable Firefox 2.0 version, Ubuntu opted to ship 8.04 with Firefox 3 beta 5. Say what you will about that decision, I find the beta version of Firefox 3 to be much more responsive than Firefox 2 and haven’t encountered a Firefox 3 crash yet. Needless to say I was very happy with this decision. Ubuntu also has also added their own subtle improvements to better the Firefox user experience in Ubuntu. If you click “Addons” under Firefox’s “Tools” menu bar an additional Add-ons window will appear sporting a link for “Get Ubuntu Extensions.” If you click that link, theres a host of Firefox extensions like Stumbleupon, User Agent Switcher, and Greasemonkey that you can install within a simple graphical application. Firefox in 8.04 also sports GTK form buttons and print dialog windows to make it better integrate with Gnome. Nice touches all around.

There’s also a nifty new default CD burning program found in 8.04 named “Brasero”. I’ve always used K3B for my cd burning needs, but after trying out “Brasero” I don’t think I’ll need to install K3b this time around. The interface for Brasero is ultra sharp, the program seems feature rich, and it runs great in Gnome as a native GTK app. My only gripe was for the lack of documentation found in that program but the layout was simple enough where it didn’t matter greatly.

Ubuntu 8.04 ships with PulseAudio pre-installed. What’s PulseAudio you may ask? PulseAudio is an advanced sound server that allows for cutting edge features like per-application volume controls and playing back streams over the network. Unfortunately with the default setup you can just toggle on and off PulseAudio through Gnome’s sound applet. To use some of PulseAudio’s more advanced features you need to install PulseAudio Volume Control via the terminal (sudo apt-get install pavucontrol) or Synaptic. Once that applet is installed you can control the volume for individual applications using the sound server. I did wish the application would detect Firefox as well, because I found myself wanting to control the volume control for webpages like YouTube separately from other applications like Rhythmbox. Also, while PulseAudio has a lot of potential during regular playback there were a few times when the sound bogged down (like it was running out of resources).

Compiz has come a long way in a short period of time, especially in terms of stability. This time around Ubuntu ships with Compiz pre-installed and enabled if you have the proper hardware. But, like PulseAudio, you can only use the basic features via Gnome’s “Appearance” applet. Under the “Visual Effects” tab in “Appearance” there’s only three choices: “None,” “Normal,” or “Extra.” Basic things like rotating desktops or enabling different window management features are unavailable with the default installation. To enable such features you have to install via the terminal (sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager) or synaptic Compiz Configuration settings manager. Once that is installed you’ll find “Advanced Desktop Effects Setting” under the “System” menu on the top Gnome panel. That opens up the familiar CompizConfig Settings Manager and you can enable all the nifty features found in Compiz/Fusion.

One of the cooler features found in the latest Totem in Ubuntu 8.04 would be the available YouTube plugin. To use this nifty plugin, click Edit/Plugins and check the box for “YouTube browser.” Once that is enabled you can select “YouTube” from the dropdown box and then search YouTube’s website from within Totem and watch those videos from within Totem.

I have been a Thunderbird user, but with the way Evolution is developing it might be time for making a switch. Evolution in its latest incarnation in 8.04 offers just about everything that Thunderbird does but includes Calendar function and even integration with Google’s Calendar. One thing that I did add from the custom Evolution install was to install the RSS plugin for Evolution (sudo apt-get install evolution-rss). Once Evolution was setup for newsfeeds, the program was just uber impressive.

With 8.04, Ubuntu ships a firewall that’s minimal (I mean minimal) in style, but works easily for basic firewall needs. The program is disabled by default and is available only through the command line. With that said, turning on ufw is fairly straight forward. Basic commends like “ufw enable” and “ufw logging on” gets the program up and running, while the program starts off initially in mostly open state.

There’s a bevy of additional applications available for Ubuntu 8.04. Some of the more noteworthy are Skype 2.0, Google Earth and Vmware Server. There were some compiling difficulties with Vmware Server 1.05 and the kernel installed in Ubuntu 8.04. If you encounter such difficulty install this nifty script posted in the Ubuntu Community forum and you’ll have Vmware up and running in no time.

With such an expansive operating system like Ubuntu 8.04 you’ll likely encounter the gamut of opinions ranging from praise to unsatisfied complaints. Having used Ubuntu 8.04 since the early alpha testing period, I can say that I find Ubuntu 8.04 to be one of the more (if not the most) polished and ready for widespread use Linux operating systems made to date. I would have appreciated if Ubuntu included utilities to control PulseAudio and Compiz by default, but installing those apps is easy enough via Synaptic or apt-get. With Ubuntu 8.04 you do get the familiar ease of use found within all Ubuntu systems, a wealth of open source applications ready to install from Ubuntu’s vast repositories and on top of that the extra stability that seems built into 8.04 LTS. Its amazing how fast and far Ubuntu has progressed in such a short period of time.